What is a “relationship”? Jane McAdam Freud examines this complex concept in a subtle and down-to-earth manner.
Jane McAdam Freud in her studio, 2006
During her eighteen months as artist-in-residence at the Freud Museum she took a detailed look at the collection of her great-grandfather, Sigmund Freud. A number of these antiquities have inspired echoes in her own work and she has discovered echoes of her work in his collection. This prompted self-reflection on the concept of relationships, particularly between McAdam Freud and her great-grandfather, between viewers and art, between herself and her own work.
The two collections – Jane McAdam Freud’s and Sigmund Freud’s – are displayed side-by-side symbolically discovering the connections. The viewer is left wondering – what combination of forces brings these works together. Genetics? Aesthetics? The unconscious?
Camden New Journal, 7 September 2006, Freuds on the Couch
…18-month stint as artist-in-residence at the [Freud] museum…[and] a six week exhibition at the museum…Called Relative Relations, the concept manages to be simple but profound at the same time. Trawling through her great-grandfather’s eclectic collection of antiquities, which are housed in the museum, McAdam Freud began to find echoes of his collection in her own work.
It got her thinking about relations, she says, all sorts – between herself and her great-grandfather, between viewers and art, between herself and her own work. The idea of pairing pieces from her work with Freud’s for an exhibition followed naturally.